Indonesia’s Flag: www.sciencekids.co.nz/pictures/flags.html
Total Wild Elephants: 1,100 to 1,600
Country Rankings: 6th out of 13 Asian countries
Threats:
- Habitat Loss
Indonesia’s wild forests are being converted for commercial use at an unsustainable way.
- Human-elephant conflict
Deforestation and habitat shrinking has greatly affected the elephants as elephants begin raiding crops and destroying villages.
- Poaching
In order to protect their crops, farmers end up killing elephants in frustration. Instead of protecting these elephants, the Indonesia authorities have been either relocating of domesticating elephants. Recently, these have stopped but the conflict still remains.
- Indonesia does not have a tradition of domesticating elephants but in 1985, the government has been domesticating them because the human-elephant conflict. As a result, Elephant Conservation Centres (EEC’s) were created. However, the government is still concerned about the major costs involved in sustaining the EEC’s (Elephants in Indonesia, n.d.).